Singapore’s ultra high-speed broadband service, capable of offering speeds of 1Gbps, will go commercial as early as the first half of 2010, earlier than many observers have expected.
The country’s telecom regulator,the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), had just awarded the tender for the network’s OpCo (operating company) to StarHub months ago, and the NetCo contract to SingTel late last year.
However, the multi-billion dollar project seems to be picking up fast, with commercial services coming to some users in less than a year, according to Singapore’s Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew, at the opening of the imbX show here.
By next year, the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network will cover 60 per cent of homes and offices. This suggests that the project is well ahead of the initial target of covering the island by 2012.
Fibre optic cables are now being deployed in buildings, said the IDA at a press conference here, and these cables will be laid into homes from September. So home owners should get ready for some disruption, just like when StarHub laid its cable network in the past.
